


Communication

by JamieTheNerd



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, Drunkenness, Eiffel joins the SI-5 AU, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, In which Eiffel tries to be the voice of reason, among several disasters who believe they're the voice of reason.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-05-20
Packaged: 2019-04-04 11:36:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14019405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JamieTheNerd/pseuds/JamieTheNerd
Summary: Eiffel gets the distinct feeling he's in for a hell of a ride.





	1. Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty! So, first of all, thanks to [@Epi_girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Epi_girl) for introducing me to this beautiful podcast and helping come up with the title because holy fuck was I lost.  
> I'll probably update this soon (hopefully?) so stick around!

“Eiffel, get over here.” He hears Maxwell’s voice through the speakers, head perking up from where he’d been oh-so-interestedly fiddling with the coms equipment. 

“Will do. Where ya at?” 

“Maxwell’s quarters.” This comes from Jacobi, voice bored and vaguely annoyed as it often is. 

“I’ll be right down.” This would be significantly more ominous and intimidating if he hadn’t had nothing else to do. “Just gimme a sec.” 

He wanders the unfamiliar halls of the Urania until he reaches Maxwell’s room, pushing the door open to see that yep, they sure are there. 

“Okay.” Alana claps her hand together, a whisper of a smile on her face. “We’re going to make a promise.” 

Eiffel’s intrigued, if not a bit alarmed. Promises are serious with the three of them. In their line of work, where lying and cheating your way out of things is practically in their job description, promises are important. Promises between them are solid, something never to be broken or cast aside. Promises are something they hold onto. 

This peaks Jacobi’s interest too, it seems, because he’s suddenly paying attention. He knows that as much as Eiffel, and if they’re going to make a promise he’s going to take it seriously. 

“We stick together.” Alana states, casting analyzing glances over the both of them. “Things are going to get ugly. We stick together and we don’t lose our cool, and we watch each other’s backs. Deal?” 

Eiffel nods without hesitation, an almost confident smile on his face. Almost. “Always.” 

They both look at Jacobi, who laughs a little in response. “Didn’t think that was something we had to clarify, but sure. I’m in.” 

“Alright then.” Maxwell grins. “Deal’s a deal.” 

* * *

_This has to be some kind of freaky, weird dream._

_One second he’s in the county prison and honestly pretty afraid for his life being the awkward, scrawny kid that he is, the next he has a job offer at bootlegged NASA, in the fucking black ops division of all places._

_“Officer Eiffel?” Kepler (who’s his new boss?) knocks him out of where he’d been stuck in his own head._

_“Wha- oh! Uh, yes sir?”_

_He takes a moment to catch up on his surroundings, which include a relatively empty room with a few seats and three other people. One of them being Kepler, and two more he doesn’t recognize._

_One of them is tall, maybe two or three inches shorter than he is and, well… he frankly looks like he just came out of a war zone. He’s wearing the standard Goddard Futuristics jumpsuit, though with considerably more scorch marks, safety goggles resting on top of his head and what look like sound-proof headphones around his neck. He looks significantly unhappy to be here._

_The other is short, at least a foot or so shorter than the other, with a face scattered with freckles, wild ginger hair in spiraling curls tumbling over her shoulders and probably the biggest stereotypical nerd glasses he’s ever seen. She seems significantly more interested in her phone than she is in anything else going on, and he can’t really blame her._

_Kepler clears his throat, gaining the attention of the room, and even the red head reluctantly puts her phone away._

_“Mr. Jacobi, Dr. Maxwell, this is Doug Eiffel. Officer Eiffel, this is your new unit.”_

_“Uh… hello?” He manages an awkward smile and a small wave._

_The room falls into silence for a few moments, and Eiffel is getting more and more uncomfortable by the second. That is, until Kepler’s phone rings._

_“Ah, I have to take this. I’ll give you all a moment to get acquainted with one another.” Is all they get before he steps out, leaving Eiffel alone with these two strangers who he knows nothing about. Shit._

_“So…” The tall one who he knows as Jacobi starts, leaning an elbow against Maxwell’s shoulder. “What’s your deal?”_

_“Sorry, what?”_

_“He means what do you do?” Maxwell doesn’t quite clarify. “Why are you here?”_

_“I uh… I don’t actually know? I’m not actually uh, that good at anything?” Good job, Eiffel. Real good first impression._

_“Bullshit.” Maxwell shoots him down instantly. “You’re here. Goddard hired you. You’re good at something.”_

_“I uh…” Eiffel thinks it over, but he honest to God can’t think of anything. He doubts his miscellaneous knowledge of pop-culture qualifies here._

_He thinks back to literally anything he could say here. He held the highest spot on pacman at an arcade for a whole week? No. He can name every pretty much every Pokémon ever invented? No. He was on a radio show for a while? Oh. Oh that could work._

_“I’m uh… really good with radios?” He tries, unsure. Maxwell looks almost proud of him, whereas Jacobi gives him a look that can only say ‘finally’ at best._

_“Sweet.” Maxwell says. “I do cool stuff with robots.”_

_“And I blow shit up.” Jacobi smiles, more of a confident smirk than anything._

_Eiffel gets the distinct feeling he’s in for a hell of a ride._

* * *

“Alrighty, folks.” Eiffel says into the comms, getting an almost giddy feeling at hearing his voice project throughout the station. He’s in space. Holy shit he’s in space this is so fucking _cool_. “This is your flight attendant speaking, we’re delighted to inform you that we’ll be approaching touchdown to the absolute middle of nowhere. Please be sure to fasten your seatbelts and prepare for all hell to break loose! We hope you’ve had a nice flight.” 

“Officer Eiffel, _please_.” He hears Kepler reply. Worth it. 

“Just messing around, Colonel. But really…” He grins, glancing out of the window of the coms room towards the star they’re going to be seeing a lot of for a long time, it seems. “Welcome to Wolf 359.”


	2. Adjusting

Things are… bumpy, when they first arrive. That’s saying the least of it. 

“Hephaestus, this is Communications Officer Doug Eiffel of the U.S.S. Urania, requesting docking protocol. Do you copy?” He says for nearly the hundredth time, trying to get these damn people to answer them. 

“With all due respect, sir, I don’t think they’re planning on picking up anytime soon.” He hears Jacobi from behind him, calming compared to the presence of Kepler looming over his shoulder. “Oh, they’ll answer. Eiffel, hail them one last time.” 

Eiffel lets out an exhausted sigh, repeating into the microphone time after time, until… 

“Hephaestus, this is-” 

“ _Yes._ ” Answers a voice from the other side, fucking finally. “ _Yes, we copy. Do what you have to do, Urania._ ” 

Kepler and Jacobi spew some nonsense about docking that Eiffel can’t be bothered to decipher, and boom, next thing he knows they’re here. They’re docked on the Hephaestus. 

“Alright. Jacobi, Eiffel, you’re with me.” 

“Wait… Sorry, huh?” Eiffel answers, turning toward the two of them. 

“Is there a problem, Officer Eiffel?” Kepler asks, and for once it seems like a genuine fucking question. 

“Er, no but- well, what exactly do you need me for?” He asks, earning an oh-so-discreet laugh out of Jacobi. 

“You’re a Communications Officer, aren’t you?” He smirks, chuckling to himself. “Well, it’s time for us to go communicate.” 

* * *

_Things are normal for a while. As normal as they can be when you’re working at Goddard Futuristics, at least._

_He talks to Jacobi and Maxwell more often off the job, and then, maybe, just maybe, they become friends._

_Which is how they ended up on Maxwell’s couch marathoning every single Star Trek movie under the sun. Maxwell’s long since passed out on her end of the couch, her legs in Jacobi’s lap, who’s leaned back and draped his arms over the back of the sofa. Then there’s Eiffel, horrendously awkward Eiffel, who’s curled up in the corner and hoping not to take up too much space._

_Eiffel notices the way Jacobi looks at her._

_It’s not like that. Jacobi’s gay. Maxwell’s a lesbian._

_But he notices the way Jacobi looks at her. He looks at her like she’s something precious. He looks at her like she’s his moon and stars. He looks at her like she’s saved his life a million times over, like she’s done something for him he can’t repay._

_He notices other things about them, too. He notices the anger stirring up inside him when Kepler when he puts her in the line of fire. He notices the way they know what the other is thinking with just a look. He notices how in sync they are together._

_He can’t help feeling like he wants that._

_Jacobi’s out like a light too before he realizes it, leaving Eiffel awake and alone with his thoughts on Maxwell’s couch. But hey, at least there’s Star Trek._

* * *

“Commander, put the gun down. We aren’t going to hurt you.” Kepler’s voice is gentle, in a way that he’s heard before. Kepler isn’t gentle because he’s being gentle. Kepler’s version of gentle is like a flame trying to draw moths in. 

“Like hell I’m going to believe that.” The Commander (Minkowski, Kepler said? He’s not sure. Eiffel’s bad with names.) bites out. She stands her ground, which would be almost admirable if it weren’t a giant thorn in their side. 

And oh boy have they got a handful. 

The three- well, _four_ of them, actually. The four of them sure are an odd group. 

The Commander stands out most, obviously, considering she’s the one presently pointing a gun at his boss. Her position is firm and her expression has a certain ferocity to it, but there’s something there that Eiffel recognizes all too well. She just looks tired. She’s tired and terrified no matter how well she thinks she’s hiding it, and he can’t blame her for any of it. 

The Captain is a strong, tall and broad figure, planted firmly behind Minkowski. She looks just as angry, if not more so, and while she’s not armed as far as they know, she seems just as dangerous. Fueled by all that she's lost, all that Goddard has done to her, she’s terrifying and cold and furious, and Eiffel’s pretty justifiably intimidated. 

Dr. Hilbert is… strange. He knows what he’s doing, a little too well for comfort. He seems to have done this little song and dance before, and Eiffel’s afraid Hilbert knows it better than he does. 

The AI (Hera, he’s learned.) hasn’t talked much. She terrifies him too, in a way. She’s a hovering presence he can’t really escape from, and if she wanted to, if she _really_ wanted to, she could kill them all where they stand. She could suck all the air out of this room and let them suffocate. She could just stop the engines and let them fall right into the star. Hell, she could lock them in here and wait for them to starve or kill each other. Whichever comes first. 

Being intimidated by the four people you were sent here to keep under control. Very James Bond of you, Mr. Black-Ops. 

“Uh, Commander? If- um, if I may…” Eiffel takes a small, tentative step forward, and she almost flinches. Almost. “I-I, um…” 

He takes a deep breath. He guesses it’s his job now, considering he’s the only one on this damn team who still knows how to behave like a fucking human being. “I… Look, I know you’re scared. I know you all went through some _super_ messed up stuff. I know you don’t want to trust us, okay? But we’re here to help you.” 

He really wishes he didn’t have to lie to make that convincing. Well, it’s not technically a lie, not really. They were sent up here to “help” them. They came up here with food, supplies, reinforcements. But they also came up here with the goal of keeping them on this death trap, which he doesn’t think will go over well. 

She definitely isn’t buying it, not fully, but she must buy it enough because she put her gun down. “Fine.”


	3. Familiarity

Eiffel is tired. 

That’s not exactly specific, Eiffel is always tired. He’s used to not sleeping for almost a week on end. He’s used to being left alone with his thoughts for hours at a time while the others sleep, save for the nights when Maxwell has a project she wants to get finished or Jacobi has some particular night terrors he doesn’t have the energy to wrestle with. Eiffel is used to being tired. 

He’s just not used to being in similar company. 

It’s not an unusual occurrence, Eiffel wandering around the halls of the station when he’s awake and has nothing better to do. He’ll wander with Jacobi sometimes, when he doesn’t want to talk and Eiffel knows he just needs a distraction at the moment. Jacobi’s getting some well deserved rest though, so not tonight. 

Instead he bumps into Captain Isabel Lovelace. As in, literally. “Wh- Oh, um- Sorry, Cap’n, I didn’t see you there.” He delivers the line with an awkward smile, trying to steady himself after the momentum sent him tumbling back towards a wall. 

She recovers from the crash relatively quickly, though she does seem surprised to see _him_ of all people at this hour. “Eiffel?” 

“The one and only.” He winces as he pulls himself up, because _ow_ his back hurts. Metal walls are not fun. “Hey, don’t you have an early shift tomorrow?” 

“I could say the same about you.” Her voice is cold and detached like it always is, and the hostility is near tangible. Not that he blames her. He _is_ one of the bad guys after all. 

“Touché.” 

“What the hell are you doing out here, Eiffel?” She asks, blunt and to the point. It’s a weird sort of mirror, the two of them have right now. Both exhausted and confused as all hell. 

“Just wanted to see if the coms need any repairs. Radio stuff.” He pulls off the lie pretty well, and he’s almost proud of himself for a moment. 

“We fixed the coms yesterday, Eiffel.” Oh. Right. 

“Well, uh, I mean-” Come on Eiffel you’ve gotta be able to think of _something_ better than that. “Better. Um, I-I wanted to see if I could make the signal receptors better! It’d be pretty useful to pick up those transmissions a little sooner, y’know?” 

“Um… right.” She’s obviously not buying it, but she seems to decide to let it go for now. Thank god. 

“So…” Eiffel tries to keep the conversation going the only way he knows how. Talk about someone other than him. “What about you? What’re you doing up?” 

“Uh…” Lovelace is silent for a fair while, staring at seemingly nothing but unwilling to look away. 

“Couldn’t sleep?” Eiffel finally prompts. 

“God, yeah.” 

Eiffel offers to let her tag along to the coms room (because yeah, now that he thinks about it getting a wider signal range _would_ be really cool, and he might as well do something with these long hours where he’s stuck doing basically nothing.) but she turns him down. 

She shows up twenty minutes later with coffee for the both of them and a small, “Is it too late to take you up on that offer?” 

Eiffel shakes his head, smiling a little brighter and a little more genuinely than he usually does. “Spot’s still open, Cap’n.” 

* * *

_“Christ.”_

_It’s not an unusual sight, really. The both of them are used to coming to work and seeing Maxwell passed out in her lab on top of whatever research or project she’d been working on._

_Jacobi sighs, and the two of them initiate a well-established procedure for when this happens. Jacobi plugs in her laptop that had been left on all night and tries to organize and make sense of the scribbles she calls notes, and Eiffel get’s a blanket they’ve given a permanent home in the storage closet and wraps it around her shoulders lightly._

_“I’ll make a Starbucks run.” Jacobi speaks up, checking the time on his phone. “She’ll want coffee when she wakes up. You want anything?”_

_“Uh, just black coffee if you don’t mind?”_

_“What the fuck?”_

_Eiffel thinks for a brief, terrifying second that Jacobi is angry at him, that he messed something up. “What?”_

_“Who the fuck drinks black coffee?” Jacobi asks instead with an easy laugh. “Calm down, Satan.”_

_“I mean hey,” Eiffel’s back to his usual smile in seconds, even if his brain is still trying to take in the relief. “Gets the job done, doesn’t it?”_

_“Jesus.” Jacobi head towards the door, giving him a lazy wave without turning around. “Alright, I’ll be back with your devil juice.”_

_Eiffel glances at the sleeping Maxwell next to him with a soft smile. This routine they’ve got, however strange, is almost relaxing._

* * *

It happens more, sometimes. On the nights where Lovelace can’t sleep and Eiffel doesn’t sleep, they find refuge in the coms room together. Eiffel works on something, Lovelace brings them coffee, they talk, and then they part ways. 

It’s unhealthy, but it helps. It makes things feel a little less like everything is about sides, up here. It feels less ‘Us v.s. Them’ at least for a while. 

“I should go..” Lovelace sighs, pushing off the wall towards the door. “I’ve got some engine repairs to work on.” 

Eiffel would be lying if he said he wasn’t just a bit disappointed, but he’d also be lying if he said he didn’t know it would have to happen eventually. “Alrighty then! Well, feel free to stop by if you need anything.” 

“Will do.” Lovelace does something rare. She smiles at him. “It was uh.. nice talking to you, Officer Eiffel.” 

“Right back at ya, Captain.” He waves her off with a smile, a small warmth rising in his chest. 

Maybe things aren’t so black and white after all.


	4. Comfort

“Maxwell-” 

“ _Don’t_.” Her words are sharp and cold and defensive, and from the look Jacobi gives her he knows it hurts him to hear that just as much as it does to Eiffel. 

So here’s the story. 

Apparently Maxwell and Jacobi got a peek at some of Kepler’s files. (He totally isn’t jealous.) Apparently there was some stuff that neither of them were supposed to see and apparently that includes something about Maxwell’s family situation. 

So now they’re here, in Maxwell’s quarters when she pretty clearly doesn’t want them to be. She’s floating, curled up in Jacobi’s hoodie and pretty clearly trying to not look at the two of them standing in the doorway. 

“Maxwell, for the love of God…” Jacobi pushes off the wall towards her, luckily losing some of his momentum before they crash into one another. He pulls her into his arms as they float weightlessly in the middle of her quarters, which she reluctantly accepts. “Talk to me here.” 

“Why should I?” She snaps, finally looking up from her lap. Her eyes are full of tears and anger (she displays one of those more than the other.) glaring up at Jacobi with a fury Eiffel’s never seen from her. “It’s not like it’s any of your business.” 

He’s never seen them fight like this. They’ve teased and they’ve argued, sure, but they’ve never _fought_. He’s never seen one of them genuinely angry at the other. 

“Look, Maxwe-“ 

“Alana.” She interrupts. She runs a hand through her hair with a humorless chuckle. “God, I can’t even hear my own last name right now.” 

“Okay. Alana.” Jacobi obliges with a nod. “What did I tell you when I first met you?” 

“You make very big things blow up?” That earns a laugh from all three of them. Even Eiffel, the pointless presence in the doorway who’s not doing anything useful. 

“Close.” Jacobi smiles, genuinely for once. “I said that if you ever need anything, I’ve got your back.” 

Maxwell looks away, going back to very pointedly avoiding looking at either of them. 

“And right now you need to talk about this.” He adds, brushing some of her bright red curls from her eyes. “Or something like that. You need to feel better, which means it’s my job to help you.” 

“Not to mention,” Eiffel speaks up, hesitant. “I do remember someone making us promise to look out for one another. Consider this us delivering on that.” 

There’s a heavy silence for what feels like hours where Eiffel thinks he’s done something wrong. He messed up _somehow_. His panic is calmed soon enough, though, when Alana buries her face in Jacobi’s chest with a mumbled, “Get over here, Eiffel.” 

He pushes towards them, and Jacobi wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him into this weird hug pile they’re in. 

So the three of them huddle there for a while, and eventually Maxwell talks. She doesn’t tell them everything, but she tells them what she’s comfortable with, and it seems to make her feel at least a little better. 

* * *

_“Uh… Jacobi?”_

_Eiffel’s not sure what he was expecting, but it sure as hell wasn’t this. Jacobi’s currently sitting at a bar (The place is mostly empty. Eiffel’s not sure why he’d felt the need to drive all the way across town to get to this specific bar.) staring silently at the glass of what he assumes is some kind of alcohol in front of him. Eiffel gets the impression that’s not his first drink of the night, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. He looks fucking wrecked, after all._

_He seems absolutely exhausted, for one thing. His eyes are starting to flutter closed before he inevitably forces them back open again and takes another swig of his drink._

_Jacobi glances up at him for less than a few seconds upon hearing his name, answering with, “What do you want, Eiffel?”_

_“Jesus Christ.” He breathes._

_He hates this. He fucking hates this with every cell in his body, and then some. This is wrong. Eiffel is the one who does this. Eiffel is the disaster. Jacobi isn’t._

_“Fuck, Jacobi,” Eiffel makes his way over to the bar and sits down on the stool next to him. “How many drinks have you even had?”_

_“Dunno.” Jacobi laughs, sad and empty and hollow. “‘S kinda the point, Eiffel.”_

_“Jesus fucking Christ.”_

_“Look, d’you need me for somethin’?” Jacobi looks up at him with an expression he can’t really read. (It’s some terrifying mixture of anger and fear and pain that he can’t seem to figure out.) “Or did Maxwell send ya to spy on me?”_

_“Maxwell didn’t-“ Eiffel cuts himself off. “What the hell are you doing to yourself?”_

_Jacobi laughs again, motioning to the glass in front of him. “Drinking. M’sorry, I thought it was obvious.”_

_“You can’t just-“_

_“Yes, Eiffel, I can.” Jacobi interrupts, finishing off the rest of his drink and waving the bartender over. “Can I get ‘nother… whatever that was?”_

_The bartender sighs and pours him another glass of alcohol. (Eiffel recognizes the hesitance of knowing someone’s had far too much, but having entirely given up on getting them to stop. He’s seen it too many times.)_

_“You don’t even know what you’re drinking?”_

_Jacobi laughs. “God, no. Don’t want to.”_

_“Oh for the love of- Jacobi, drink some damn water and go home.” Eiffel’s sick of this. He’s sick of having his own bullshit mirrored back at him, he’s sick of not being able to help just because it would be the most hypocritical thing he’s ever said._

_“Or you’ll what? Call Maxwell?” He asked with a small hiccup of a laugh. “Hate to tell ya, Eiffel, she’s been tryin’ to stop me for years. Good luck.”_

_“So it’s an anniversary, then?”_

_“More or less.” Jacobi sighs again, tracing small circles into the wood of the countertop in front of him. “I think it’s… seven years. God, seven years ago today.”_

_“Fuck, man…” Eiffel lays a hand on Jacobi’s shoulder. “Can I ask..?”_

_“Yeah, sure.” Jacobi takes another sip of his drink. “It’s about time you unlocked my tragic backstory.”_

_So he listens. Jacobi explains what happened with the Air Force, the explosives, that stupid fucking detonator that wouldn’t work. He talks about the two guys that died seven years ago because he couldn’t do his damn job right. “They were nice guys, y’know. We weren’t close or whatever, but the world needs more good people. Now it has two less of ‘em.” And Jacobi laughs that numb, terrifying laugh that he’s been doing all night._

_“Jacobi, I-“ He hesitates. “I’m so sorry.”_

_“Yeah, everyone is. They’re all real sorry for me. Such a tragedy.” Jacobi slides the empty glass across the bar, and the bartender returns it with more booze. “Now can you leave me alone so I can drink away my feelings? It’s how all good tragedies end.”_

_Eiffel contemplates it for a second. He’s sure as hell not letting him stay here alone, but he can’t help but think… maybe Jacobi’s earned this. After all that he’s been through, yeah, maybe he deserves to forget for one night._

_Absolutely the fuck not._

_“Look, Jacobi. I’m gonna be honest here.” He starts, voice firm. “I get this. I get where you’re coming from. I get what it’s like to feel like this. But you don’t get to destroy yourself because you can’t forgive yourself for something that was an accident.”_

_“Actually, I think I can, Eiffel.” He smiles, raising an eyebrow. “Fucking watch me.”_

_Eiffel talks him out of it after a few more drinks (He’s not sure if he can even call it that. He’s almost positive Jacobi just decides to leave on his own.) and gives him a ride home and a fuckton of water bottles on the way there._

_“Hey, Jacobi?” He says once they finally reach his doorstep, Jacobi swaying on his feet slightly and Eiffel trying to keep him steady._

_“Hm?”_

_“Get some rest.”_

_Jacobi laughs under his breath. “Will do, Eiffel.”_

* * *

Eiffel feels like he can’t breathe. 

He knows logically speaking there’s plenty of air on the Hephaestus, and probably even more on the Urania, (Unless Hera did something. Which, if he’s being honest, he wouldn’t be surprised.) but he can’t seem to get it to go in and out of his lungs correctly, and the world around him feels like it’s blurring at the edges. 

“Eiffel.” 

Whose voice is that? He can’t place it, even if it sounds so familiar he’d recognize it anywhere. 

He tries to pull himself back into reality, fighting so hard to remember where the hell he is and what he’s doing and all the things he wants to forget right now. 

“Eiffel!” 

Jacobi. That’s Jacobi. 

“EIFFEL!” 

He opens his eyes when he doesn’t remember closing them, looking at where Jacobi is standing in front of him. He’s making that stupid ‘I’m concerned but I’m sure as hell not going to let you know that’ face, eyebrows knitted together and mouth forced into a frown, when he adds, “There you go. Calm down, dude.” 

Things come back to him and slowly but surely his breathing and his heartbeat go back to normal. He slowly starts to register things like Jacobi’s hands on his shoulders and his legs shaking beneath him. He watches Jacobi head back over to the bomb— wait, why is there a bomb? 

Maxwell. Maxwell’s in trouble. Something about a door that won’t open and she’s unconscious and overheating and now he’s starting to remember why he was freaking out in the first place. 

It must show, too, because Jacobi groans and goes, “Goddamnit, don’t back out on me again. Get over here and help me with this.” 

Eiffel takes a breath and does what he’s told, how he got from where he was standing to Jacobi is a blur, but he gets there. He helps Jacobi the best he can, handing him tools and all that, and Eiffel can’t help but notice the way his hands are shaking while he works. He’s just as nervous as he is, if not more. 

“Jacobi.” Eiffel murmurs softly, placing a hand on his shoulder and flashing him a nervous smile. “She’s gonna be fine.” 

“Yeah.” Jacobi nods breathing out a sigh as he looks back down at what he’s working on. “Yeah, obviously. She’s Maxwell. She’s gonna be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this took so long!!! I’m going to try and update this soon, but this chapter was pretty heavy and kind of hard to write haha.  
> The next chapter should be lighter hopefully?? Idk man they’re all suffering.


End file.
